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September 2024

Like a Dragon: Yakuza. Episodes 1 to 3

Are “honourable criminals” lying to themselves? Is servitude worse than death? Less a criminal drama and more a criminal soap opera Prime Video’s Yakuza has thoughts on these questions.

Focusing on four orphans, two male and two female, on the cusp of leaving their orphanage the four protagonists here walk themselves into a nightmare of a heist gone awry. Gangsters who come looking for stolen money don’t shut up. The assassins who will kill them at their leader’s whim don’t talk. And the one who makes the room go silent when he speaks is now speaking to them. What’s it going to be, kids? Death or servitude to the Yakuza? You can have a bullet now, or you can work yourself to death at manual labour or in the sex trade.

With the characters' back stories developed through time jumps we’re shown the build up to the situation that changed their lives and what the results are a decade later. This isn’t the strongest story telling device and the show lost my attention when it went back in time. The Yakuza operation and its politics I found more interesting. Much of their code of honour is a way of controlling street scum on the ground but their ceremonies have reverence. There is no room in the sprawling criminal organisation for those who don't know when to take a blade and cut off their fingers. Self-mutilation to restore honor is a tradition.

Like all organisations rooted in tradition even gangsters are under siege from modernity. The difference is that their idea of pushing back against the pressure to change comes in the shape of a psychopath with a sword and a gun.

While our protagonist recruits see their transformed lives as more glamorous they become more isolated. Their criminal association is a stain on them that never fades. In the case of women, the world becomes something they see through luxury car windows. The show gives them lifestyles of high-end escorts while avoiding any mention of sex. In the main character’s case the world is something he perceives from inside the illegal fighting ring or through prison bars. Enforcing immoral people's will puts him in a cage.

Based on the video game franchise of the same name the characters dress pixel perfect at times. But there’s decent human drama here and the fights are competent. There’s good English audio dubbing for those who don't want subtitles and the story has a Japanese method of story telling that makes it different. I’ll watch episode 4.


Megalopolis

I commend Francis Ford Coppola for taking an idea he wanted to do for 40 years, putting his money into it and bringing it to the screen. But this is an experimental movie overstuffed with his fancies which does not resonate with an audience. He brought it to life through his will, but he is the intended audience. It may not matter to him if no one else watches it.

Set in a modern age pastiche of the Roman Empire, Adam Driver’s Catilina is a blend of Roman history's Catiline, John Galt from Atlas Shrugged and New York City architect Robert Moses. He has bent matter to his will with the creation of Megalon, a Noble prize winning piece of materials science that unlocks the next phase in construction. Time is also not beyond him since he can pause it. He even scrubs back through it to clear up a bit of exposition in the second act.

For the budget it has this movie looks wonderful on the big screen. But the message of the superior man and superior woman willing the future into existence, like the director who dedicates this film to his recently deceased wife, may not go down that well. Catiline in history was a demagogue who used the people for insurrection. The Empire obliterated him and his forces at Pistoria. Driver here couldn’t be further away from the people. They suffer as he demolishes their homes to make room for his future. You may want him to succeed if only because it’s preferable his opponents fail but you won’t like him.

Nathalie Emmanuel is likeable here. Even if she starts out as a vain hedonist and becomes a worthy collaborator to Driver’s character in no screen time at all. Aubrey Plaza plays an Aubrey Plaza type character again. As an actor, her range was explored in its entirety during her run on Fox’s LEGION and you see the limits of that range here. Shia LeBouff remains an underrated actor. Change his hair and clothing and he can play anything.

This is an art movie infused with improvised moments. Go into it for the spectacle and cling on to the end, because you feel the running time before the two-hour mark, and you might find something that interests you among its ideas. Even if I had control of time, I wouldn't do a deep re-watch of this. On a repeat viewing it's a movie to glance at over the top of a second screen.


Joker: Folie à Deux

This doesn't work as a musical or a villain movie but it held my attention for most of its running time. The massive flaw in the production is that it's not supposed to be this horrific a musical.

The wasted life is a goldmine for an operatic performance. That's what Arthur Fleck's (Joaquin Phoenix) life is. A grinding misery that gets more miserable in increments. Every day the sun rises life takes a razor blade to Arthur's soul and shaves off another thin slice. But then there is love, and music, and comedy and tragedy. Or there would be if this was a better written movie. This is where it all falls apart. The love isn't love. It's someone who wants you to be your worst self. The musical numbers neither fit into what's happening nor propel the story forward. They're well lit karoeke numbers. Nothing here is funny. Even when we step into Arthur's inner life, where he should be everything no one else sees, he remains as unfunny to the viewer as he is when shuffling along Arkham's halls.

Your actor won an Oscar for an interesting take on a tired comic book villain. The hit movie you made had nonsense ideas about wounded men and their fragile egos projected onto it. You think to yourself "we don't want to encourage this." So you, correctly, say this broken man can't kill six people and expect to prosper.

But does it have to be so shallow? I'd have read this script and sent the writers off to watch Pagliacci. Several times. And if an opera about a tragic figure in deep emotional pain who swings from manic clowning humour to powerful murderous rages in a gritty setting can't improve the script? They've failed.

This should have been a musical about a tragedy. It's just a tragic musical. A big movie that's too oppressive to be anything but small.